{"id":135110,"date":"2025-02-21T07:59:00","date_gmt":"2025-02-21T12:59:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/?p=135110"},"modified":"2025-02-21T15:41:14","modified_gmt":"2025-02-21T20:41:14","slug":"nyt-op-ed-germany-is-in-big-trouble-and-nobody-knows-what-to-do-about-itnyt-op-ed","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/?p=135110","title":{"rendered":"(NYT Op-ed) Germany Is in Big Trouble, and Nobody Knows What to Do About It"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

It\u2019s been a grim election season in Germany. Spanning the harsh winter months, the campaign \u2014 set off by the collapse of the government<\/a> in December \u2014 has played out against a backdrop of short days, low temperatures and dark moods. The poor level of political debate has done little to lift the country\u2019s spirits.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For a brief spell, taxes, jobs and government spending \u2014 the meat and drink of electoral contest \u2014 got most of the attention. But in late January an Afghan attacked<\/a> a kindergarten group in a Bavarian town, killing a toddler and a bystander. The incident set off a political storm that eclipsed everything else.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Politicians jumped right in. Friedrich Merz, leader of the conservative Christian Democrats, introduced to Parliament a nonbinding proposal for stricter border controls and a crackdown on illegal immigration. To pass the motion, he relied on the support<\/a> of the far-right Alternative for Germany. There was uproar. The center-left Social Democrats and the Greens cried foul, casting themselves as bastions against the rise of extremism.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The debate simmered away through February. That was until last Friday, when Vice President JD Vance made an incendiary speech<\/a> at the Munich Security Conference, lambasting European governments for lax migration policies and their supposed censorship of the far right. Germany was shocked, plunged into deep anxiety about its relationship with an increasingly hostile America.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Read it all<\/a>.<\/p>

Germany Is in Big Trouble, and Nobody Knows What to Do About It
https:\/\/t.co\/3ThTI1Ip2g<\/a><\/p>— Mary Lee Johnson (@mljtpa) February 21, 2025<\/a><\/blockquote>